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A family has received close to a billion dollars in compensation after taking legal action against a Utah hospital for mishandling a mother’s delivery, resulting in their child being left with severe disabilities.
Anyssa Zancanella was granted $951 million in a medical malpractice case after a judge remarked that her daughter, Azaylee, would have had a safer birth in ‘a bathroom at a gas station, or a hut somewhere in Africa.’
Zancanella recounted how her initially healthy pregnancy with her first child took a turn for the worse after her water broke during a brief visit to the Salt Lake City area in October 2019.
Being far from her doctor back in Wyoming, the family hurried to Jordan Valley Medical Center West Valley Campus, which was managed at the time by the now closed Steward Health Care.
According to the lawsuit, while at the hospital, Zancanella was administered ‘excessive’ amounts of Pitocin, a drug used to induce labor, and was neglected by the nurses and medical staff.
The legal claim stated that ‘This was the very first, or one of the very first times, that either of the assigned bedside nurses had individually been responsible for a laboring patient.’
Zancanella said doctors did not perform a C-section delivery until over a day after she was admitted, which ultimately deprived her baby of oxygen and caused brain damage.
‘[The obstetrician] abandoned mother and fetus/infant when she was fully aware of significant and dangerous issues with the ongoing labor process and the ongoing health and well-being of the fetus,’ the lawsuit said.
The judge said Zancanella’s daughter, Azaylee (center), would have been safer if she was born in ‘a hut somewhere in Africa’
Azaylee (pictured) suffers from seizures and is unable to sleep alone, so the whole family shares one bed, according to the mother
‘[Azaylee] sustained damages, including but not limited to, permanent neurological and cognitive damages, physical damages, emotional damages, limitations in physical, cognitive and mental function, as well as pain and suffering.’
Zancanella’s said during her testimony: ‘[Azaylee] had her life stolen. We all did. We had her taken from us. She is trapped. I know that my daughter is in there, but she can’t come out and I think of that every day.’
The mother said her daughter requires constant care because she struggles with seizures.
The family all share the same bed because Azaylee cannot sleep alone. She is nonverbal and receives physical and occupational therapy.
Third District Judge Patrick Corum found Steward Health Care liable in Zancanella’s medical malpractice case, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
‘[Zancanella] would have been better off delivering this baby at the bathroom of a gas station, or in a hut somewhere in Africa, than in this hospital,’ he said.
‘Literally, this was the most dangerous place on the planet for her to have given birth.
‘The person she was to be, the person she deserved to be, is trapped inside a brain-damaged child,’ the judge added.
‘I cannot think of anything more profound, total or complete than that loss.’
Corum awarded Zancanella, her partner, Daniel McMichael, and their daughter $951 million.
Zancanella said she had a perfectly healthy pregnancy but left the hospital with a severely disabled child
Anyssa Zancanella was awarded $951 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital she said left her daughter unable to talk and lacking cognitive or executive function
The judge said the award could have been higher if Steward had not stopped communicating with its attorney.
‘Had the defendant been here, I think the testimony would have been lengthier and even more compelling, if that’s possible,’ he said.
It is unclear how and when the family will be able to collect their damages because Steward has effectively withdrawn from the case, according to Corum.
‘Indeed, since at least the early Spring of 2024, Defendants’ entire strategy seems to have been nothing other than an attempt to thwart justice and the judicial process,’ he said.
‘The court is still, in a very, very odd way, reluctant to give what I think this case is actually worth because [the defendants are] not here, because I do not want to create issues that don’t need to be there.’
The family’s attorney, Jennifer Morales, said the family should be able to collect at least half of the award, which represents punitive damages.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Steward stop participating in the legal battle and its lawyers withdrew from the case.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024 and sold all of its hospitals.
